


I'll Be Home for Winter's Crest

by rannadylin



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Holidays, Reunions, Winter's Crest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 13:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8625970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rannadylin/pseuds/rannadylin
Summary: Vox Machina reunites in Whitestone for their first Winter’s Crest after the fall of the Chroma Conclave. Snow shenanigans ensue, while Percival decides to do something about how badly he missed Vex while she was away. Written for mothband's lovely art in the Critical Role Reverse Bang!





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [mothband](http://mothband.tumblr.com/)'s lovely art in the [Critical Role Reverse Bang](http://critrolebang.tumblr.com/)!

_I. Vex’ahlia_

Vex was first through the portal. Keyleth finished the incantation, opening the familiar window through the massive trunk of the oak tree they had selected, and then stepped back. Vex barely even registered the meaningful look her brother and the druid exchanged before they each glanced her way, waiting for her to go first. She was already halfway through the tree before she even paused to consider what it meant, that they would expect her to go first. To _want_ to make this journey first.

But after all, she had the most invested in their destination, hadn’t she? It was _home_ on the other side. For years -- after Byroden was burned and Syngorn scorned -- her only definition of home had been Vax himself, her mirror and safe harbor. But she had a house of her own now, newly rebuilt to her exacting specifications. And even if her manor’s cozy elegance were not enough to keep her from haring off on a whim to travel alongside her brother again, for old times’ sake…

She was first through the portal, and as she stepped out into the Sun Tree’s courtyard, already blanketed with a fine layer of snow this early in the season, her keen eyes were instantly scanning the scene around her for hair to match the snow and the glint of the northern sun on gold-rimmed glasses. He was there, of course: standing up already from his seat on a low wall at the edge of the courtyard, striding forward to meet the travelers with a grin slowly spreading at the sight of her and arms spreading to receive her.

And that was why, however widely Vex’ahlia might wander in this season of peace and respite, Whitestone had redefined itself as _home_. Fresh from the portal, tingling still with the slightest trace of its magic or of anticipation, she threw herself into Percy’s waiting arms before her traveling companions had even finished porting in behind her.

“Welcome home, dearest,” Percy breathed in her ear.

“I missed you,” she answered, squeezing him as if he were the one who had been away and she were loath to let him out of her orbit again.

“Serves you right,” he said, drawing back just enough to grin at her, forehead to forehead, “for staying away so long.”

“Only a few weeks!” she protested, as the rushing sound of the portal behind her suddenly faded away. In its wake the chirping of birds up in the Sun Tree’s branches sounded over the footsteps of two half-elves and a lumbering bear catching up to her. Vex pressed a quick kiss to Percy’s lips and whispered, “A few, far too long, weeks,” before withdrawing to let him greet the rest of them too. As soon as he was free, Keyleth squealed and launched herself at him in a staggering hug, throwing him off balance until Vax’ildan wrapped his arms around them both from behind Percy, whose startled cry quickly resolved into laughter. Vex’ahlia hid a smile behind one hand, buried the other in Trinket’s fur, and started walking up toward the castle while Keyleth (constantly) and Vax (occasionally) peppered Percy with questions that they scarcely gave him time to answer before blurting out all the news from their travels.

Vex resolved to be patient. After all, it had been far more than a few (too long) weeks since they had seen their friend. Renovations to the Third House of Whitestone had kept her in town while Vax had spent time settling in to Keyleth’s home among the Air Ashari. With her house (her own! All hers! She still marveled to think of it) fully restored, however, Vex had felt the weight of her twin’s absence and given in at last to the need to have him near.

It wasn’t quite like old times, though, these weeks of traveling with him and Keyleth. It was nothing like when the twins had traveled on their own, nor quite like the travels of Vox Machina as a whole. Vax was over the moon having both of them near, but Vex couldn’t help feeling a bit superfluous every time he smiled at Kiki. It wasn’t jealousy exactly, and she was truly happy for them both, but the shift in the twins’ relationship was growing more and more undeniable.

Plus, she missed Percy. At least denying _that_ was no longer necessary. They had always tended to take things slow between the two of them, and defining what exactly they meant to each other -- at least, when both were conscious to take part in such a discussion -- had been put on hold over and over again when the crises of the Chroma Conclave conflict took priority. Still, one gesture at a time -- a kiss, a word of encouragement, a comforting touch, a flirtatious glance -- this understanding between them had solidified into...well, into something real enough to earn her first passage through Keyleth’s portal.

Fingers brushing against hers amidst their nest in Trinket’s fur broke her out of her reverie. Vex glanced up to see Percy watching her from the other side of the bear. She smiled and wove her fingers with his. Trinket huffed and grumbled as they disentangled their hands from his fur, but the relief in Percy’s expression, as he clasped her hand before resting them both atop Trinket’s back again, sent all the frustrations of her weeks away scattering.

“It’s funny,” he said after a while. “Vax and Keyleth have been gone far longer than you have. And yet I’m sure I’ve missed you far longer.”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have left,” she said, glancing down to the path ahead of them.

“No, no,” he insisted. “I would not begrudge you these weeks. Your brother must have been missing you far more than I have.”

“Darling --”

“And I would not wish you to feel obligated -- it’s not as if your title should in any way curtail your liberties. There are responsibilities of your station, of course, but that doesn’t prevent you coming and going as you please.”

“Percival --”

“It’s just…” He jammed his free hand in a pocket, grinning sidelong at her. “Whitestone has been awfully dull without you here.”

“Well, then,” she said, arching an eyebrow. “Time we livened it up a bit. There’s a festival to celebrate, after all.”

 

_II. Percival_

Whitestone, for all his attachment to it, was admittedly rather dreary in the winter. And it was winter so long, this far north.

It had been winter already when she departed, locking up her fine new manor mere days after the repairs were completed, though he supposed her journeys in catching up with her brother would take her to climates not yet burdened with snow. The snow, in her absence, had freely coated Whitestone with colorless quiet. He had spent the weeks pining for her laughter, her bold glances, her _color_.

It was a good thing she -- her party -- were the first to return for the holidays. Percy couldn’t imagine how awkward it would be to keep pining like this while Grog and the gnomes arrived.

The worst of it was, after years exiled from his childhood home, he’d begun to settle here once again, taking on some of the burdens of rule to ease Cassandra’s load. He’d passed an idyllic autumn, wandering the woods with Vex’ahlia, showing her his childhood haunts (admittedly, there were far more of those _inside_ the castle than out in the woods), escorting her to dinners, rebuilding the Third House with her, crafting the trick arrows she (and he) so loved, while she hovered in his workshop, chattering and charming. They had both missed the rest of Vox Machina, naturally, but the promise of the coming holiday reunions contented them.

Until Vex set out to reunite with her brother well before Winter’s Crest. In her absence, Percy found that Whitestone stopped feeling quite so much like _home_. The implications were certainly not lost on him, but it was not until he saw her, bright and beautiful, step through the Sun Tree and back into his arms, that he knew what had to be done.

He summoned the royal jeweler that evening after dinner.

 

_III. Vex’ahlia_

Vex had discovered a love for decorating while Greyskull Keep was being built, and renovating the house of her barony had reawakened it. Appearances were crucial, after all, when one had everything to prove.

Perhaps the decorations of this season were less about proving anything, she allowed, and more about simply celebrating. Winter’s Crest was a time of remembering past crises survived or averted and rejoicing in the presence of one’s family and friends. Vox Machina had earned a bit of such peace and celebration, certainly. So it was with delight that she joined Keyleth and Pike (who had arrived to Whitestone by airship only days after the half-elves’ return, with Grog, Scanlan, and, to everyone’s surprise, Kaylie in tow) out in the woods gathering evergreen boughs with which to bedeck the castle as well as Vex’s manor.

“Come on, Buddy!” Vex coaxed Trinket when the bear balked at pulling the sled now laden with fresh-cut greenery. “We’re going to make everything so pretty! Pine and holly everywhere, and --”

“Ribbons!” Pike added. “Blue and white streamers all through the Sun Tree, just like last year. So festive!”

“Ribbons!” Keyleth echoed. “Trinket, maybe if there’s extra ribbon we can make some bows for you again and --”

“No,” Vex cut her off. “No bows.” She glared at the druid, then looked back at the bear. “Come on, Trink. Help us carry the branches back to the castle and I promise, no bows.”

Inside the castle, they found ladders up around the Great Hall. Vex spotted Kynan and Jarrett atop two of them, working to string garlands of the evergreens that the girls had brought in on previous trips. Glancing around, comparing their progress to the suddenly dwarfed heap of boughs on Trinket’s sled, Vex sighed at the realization of how much further they had to go to properly decorate the castle, let alone her own house.

Then a mug of warm cocoa was pressed into her chilled fingers, and she looked up into Percy’s welcoming smile. “Not tiring of this already, I hope?” he asked.

“After only three trips out into the cold?” she scoffed, tilting her chin at him in challenge. “Never. I fear we may leave little of your forests behind when this festival is over, though. Or it’ll be a day’s journey just to find trees we haven’t already stripped bare.”

Some thought passed behind his eyes, too quick for her to read before he glanced down at his own cup. Vex sipped from her cocoa and waited, keeping her eyes on him till he met her gaze again. “Our forests,” he finally said.

“What?”

“You’re a Lady of Whitestone now too, you know. So...I suppose the forests are yours to strip, if you feel you must.”

“Well.” She considered him a moment, hiding her smile with her mug. “I suppose it would be wise to leave _something_ behind, then. But I was so looking forward to going all-out on the decorations this year.”

He glanced around the half-garlanded hall. “It does seem rather more...thorough than I recall. Your doing?” He raised an eyebrow at her.

Vex shrugged and set her now empty mug down on a nearby table. “I may have underestimated the size of the castle a bit.”

Percy’s mug joined hers and he took her hand, tugging her toward the exit. “Well, I suppose we do have more than usual to celebrate this year. Come. If we need more garlands, I’ll help you gather them.”

“Right away?” she groaned, but she let him draw her away from the warmth of the hall, beckoning to Trinket to follow. “I just spent _hours_ out in this, and --”

Her protests were interrupted by the _whumph_ of a snowball slamming into Percy’s shoulder, staggering him towards her in a shower of icy particles, as soon as they stepped out into the courtyard. Vex gaped, instinctively reaching to steady him, and then giggled, as Grog’s bellowing challenge sounded off to the side of the yard.

Percy glanced over his shoulder at the goliath, and then back to Vex with a wink. “Perhaps the garlands can wait?”

She nodded enthusiastically, dropping his hand to dive for the nearest snowdrift. Percy joined her behind a pile of snow large enough to give them cover from which to observe the frozen missiles flying between Grog, Vax, and Pike from different corners of the courtyard, while servants and townsfolk going about on more serious business skirted to the yard’s edges to avoid the crossfire. Quickly they began piling up ammunition of their own, preparing to launch a counterattack, until a pair of snowballs from behind them -- seemingly from nowhere -- interrupted their work.

“Scanlan!” Vex shouted, brushing snow out of her braid, when the invisible bard’s laughter betrayed his location. “That’s cheating!”

“That’s _winning,_ ” the gnome’s disembodied voice corrected her, yards away from where she first heard his cackling.

“Trinket!” Vex called out. “Get him!”

With a happy roar, the bear took off running, pursuing the gnome by scent more quickly than Vex could pick out his trail of tiny footprints appearing as from nowhere in the well-trampled snow. All of a sudden, the footprints vanished in a poof of purplish smoke and Trinket sat back on his haunches, looking around in confusion.

“Dimension door!” Vex crowed, as Percy laughed somewhere off behind her, catching up with an armful of their snowballs. “He’s around somewhere, Buddy! Find him! Sniff him out!”

And so began a chase around the courtyard to rival even the Grey Hunt (of which Vex had yet to even learn the details of her role, and it was high time for that briefing, wasn’t it?). Vex and Percy kept their visible opponents at bay while Trinket blazed a trail in pursuit of the meddling bard. Between Scanlan’s occasional magical relocation to the opposite side of the yard and the lumps of snow flying in every direction the whole time, it was chaos. Vex had never felt more alive, shrieking in alternating alarm and triumph, ducking behind Percy to avoid a snowball from her brother and then laughing as she warmed the spot on his cheek that took the missile for her with apologetic kisses. She was still laughing when he grinned and crammed a handful of snow down her collar in retaliation before kissing her back.

Pulling back from their kiss after a moment, Vex gaped in surprise and shoved Percy to the ground, falling on top of him just as Grog came thundering up with a snowball the size of a small boulder aimed at Vax over her shoulder. As the danger roared past them, Vex turned her gaze from her brother’s quick retreat back to Percy, pressed flat on his back between herself and the snowy yard. His arms had just ceased flailing in surprise and come to rest at the small of her back. Vex shifted a knee, meeting his eyes as the gradual realization of their position brought color to both their cheeks simultaneously.

“Vex?” Percy said after a moment, his voice low as his thumbs traced circles on her back.

“Mm?” she hummed, eyes drifting toward his lips.

“Not that this isn’t a delightful experience, dear,” he continued dryly, “at least for the side of me, ah, warmed by your lovely presence, but the side of me in the snow is getting a bit numb…”

“Well, we can’t have that,” Vex laughed, scrambling off of him and offering a hand to haul him to his feet.

“Thank you,” Percy said, gingerly brushing the excess of snow from his coat. Vex moved in to assist with the process. If her hands lingered overlong on brushing the snow from his nearly-numb backside, he acknowledged it only with a wry grin and an eyebrow raised in her direction.

“There. Good as new,” Vex sang out with one last affectionate pat to his rear. “I suppose...back to those garlands, then?”

He glanced around the courtyard, quiet now as the rest of Vox Machina seemed to have taken the free-for-all elsewhere. Even Trinket was nowhere to be seen, presumably still pursuing Scanlan wherever the bard might run.

“We should,” Percy agreed, reaching for her hand. “Also, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

“While we walk through the woods?” Vex said, drawing closer as they turned to exit the castle grounds. “Sounds familiar. You intend to actually talk this time? Or just more kissing?”

“A bit of both, probably,” Percy grinned. “But --”

Shrieks of laughter and wails of consternation interrupted whatever he was going to say. From outside the castle gates, Trinket bounded into view past a guffawing gauntlet of guards, his jaws clamped around a now visible and thoroughly disheveled gnome. Vex laughed and praised her bear as he deposited the bard at her feet.

“That bear,” Scanlan grumbled, accepting the hand-up Vex offered and carefully straightening his rumpled attire, “is a menace.”

“I’m sorry,” Vex cooed, “I think you meant to say, ‘a hero’?”

“Sore loser,” Scanlan countered with a toothy smile.

“Takes one to know one,” chuckled a voice approaching from the castle, and Scanlan’s eyes widened. Vex turned to see Kaylie striding up, hands on her hips as she took in her father’s appearance. Behind her trailed Pike, hiding a grin behind her hand, and Grog, hoisting the Bag of Holding over one broad shoulder.

“Jarrett says they’re almost out of branches again,” Pike explained. “We brought Grog to help carry them so Trinket can have a break from sled duty.”

The bear lowed happily at this, approaching to nuzzle Pike gently. Vex exchanged a look with Percy, who shrugged slightly. “We were just on our way to fetch more,” he explained. “But more hands certainly make for lighter work.”

And fewer heart-to-heart conversations, Vex mourned inwardly. Still, there was nothing so terrible about another walk through the woods at the rise of winter, surrounded by her friends and hand in hand with her heart’s home.

 

_IV. Percival_

The thing about a large family, Percy had long known, was that solitude became a precious and rare commodity. Of course, he had plenty of experience in carving out space for himself to be alone amongst a host of siblings, but it was different with Vox Machina. His newfound family had a way of meddling that went far beyond what his siblings of shared blood had ever developed. It was especially different when he was hoping not just for a moment to himself, but a moment alone with Vex’ahlia. If it wasn’t Keyleth grabbing his arm to tell him all the latest Ashari news, it was Vax drawing Vex away into the shadows for sibling time, or it was Pike gathering Vex and Keyleth and even Cassandra and Kaylie and herding them away for some sort of girls’ day out that left Percy wandering the halls and wondering where everyone had gone until a patrolling guard offered explanation. But the greater part of most days were spent in one big, happy group as they made preparations for the coming festival. Despite his frustration at trying to get Vex to himself for a bit, Percy had to admit it was a pleasant change from last year’s Winter’s Crest, when they had all been about their individual business, largely avoiding each other for so many reasons.

So he made a point of not avoiding anyone, this year, even when at moments he would have liked to just hide away from all the bustle and merriment. It had been months since they had traveled together as adventurers, sharing every moment of every day. It did not seem likely that those days would return, as Percy settled into his role in Whitestone; Keyleth, her Aramente complete, prepared to take up the reins of leadership among her Ashari clan; Scanlan tried to cram as much fathering as possible into every day as if to make up for years of giving Kaylie none of himself; Vax stepped ever deeper into the Raven Queen’s plans for him while Pike, with the aid of Grog’s strong arms, continued the work of restoration to which Sarenrae had called her; and Vex --

Well. That was the question, wasn’t it? She hadn’t returned to Emon, at least, to rebuild Greyskull Keep as he’d once promised her they would. Instead, it was Whitestone’s Third House she had rebuilt. Until the wanderlust, or the connection with her brother, drew her away from the cold north again, and Percy stayed behind wrestling doubts.

One doubt, at least, he’d wrestled into submission. There were things he had to say to her, before she could take off again -- if leaving was her plan. Things he became ever more anxious to say as the days of preparation rushed past without much opportunity to speak to her alone.

They walked down to the center of town, one day, along with the others, for last minute gift shopping. Everyone descended upon Gilmore’s shop first -- now expanded from its original storefront to incorporate the two buildings to either side. After a time of exchanging news and happy greetings with the beloved proprietor, plus nearly an hour of browsing his glorious goods and a bit of actual purchasing (each of them exchanging their funds for the coveted gifts as surreptitiously as possible, while the intended recipients were doing likewise in another corner of the store), the group gradually began to scatter to other establishments in town. For a moment Percy had Vex to himself, walking arm in arm from store to store. Leaving a bakery with a bag full of spiced pastries (ostensibly for the opening of the Winter’s Crest festivities the next morning, but Percy was too charmed by Vex’s daring wink to complain when she lifted one from the bag to start nibbling on the moment they walked out the door), he was just starting to gather his thoughts into one of his prepared speeches when she shoved the bag into his hands and darted a sugary, well-spiced kiss to his lips before drawing back.

“Percival, darling,” she said, a gleam in her eyes, “much as I’d love to keep you in tow all day, I’ve had my eye on a gift for you that I’d rather keep a surprise till tomorrow.”

“...Oh,” was all he managed.

“Give me half an hour, will you, love?” she smiled at him, and he found himself agreeing to meet her at the Sun Tree half an hour later even as the speeches went to pieces in his mind.

As soon as she was out of sight, though, he recognized the opportunity for what it was, and turned with a spring in his step to the jeweler’s.

 

_V. Vex’ahlia_

Caroling had been Scanlan’s idea. In Whitestone, Percy advised, it was not the most practiced of Winter’s Crest traditions, but it was not unheard of. In Scanlan’s reasoning, it was the perfect opportunity to perform one’s way into a cup of holiday cheer at as many doors as possible. Pike perked up at the thought of beloved Celestial hymns of the season. With a bit of a sigh and minimal coaxing from Vex and Keyleth, Percy agreed to join her in the singing of them. The rest of them, with a more limited repertoire but an excess of holiday spirit, quickly joined in and followed Scanlan down into town.

It was a tradition, Vex’ahlia decided as they were slowly walking back to the castle afterwards, to be preserved and encouraged henceforth. Wandering the snowy streets, watching the townsfolk beam with joy as Vox Machina belted out their heartiest renditions of every holiday song they could remember, had warmed her heart enough to hold back the perpetual chill of the north. Trinket had drawn squealing laughter from children when he occasionally joined in the songs with bays and roars of his own. Most of all, Vex had thrilled to the sound of Percy and Pike’s Celestial duets, proudly recalling the time their harmony had contributed to saving a child’s life back in Westruun.

She was still happily recalling those hymns when Percy nudged her as the group trudged back up the climbing path toward the castle. “You’re humming.”

“Oh,” she said. “Was I?”

“I didn’t realize you even knew that hymn,” he persisted.

“Well, I didn’t realize it either,” she said. “But _someone_ had to go and sing it so attractively I’ve got it stuck in my head now, I guess.”

“Yes,” Percy said with an all too innocent air, “Pike _does_ sing it very well, doesn’t she?”

Vex laughed and shoved at him. “Not what I meant.”

“Yes, I know,” he said, giving her a look that made her falter in her step for a moment. Percy stopped as well, catching at her elbow. “Vex…” he began.

“Hm?”

He glanced back up the road, where the rest of the party had pulled ahead of them, and then off to the side of the path, into the woods deep with snow. At Vex’s other side, Trinket huffed, his breath crystallizing in the frosty air. Then Percy’s shoulders squared with resolve. “Come with me,” he said, tugging at her hand as he stepped off the path.

“What? It’s late, Percy. And cold,” she pointed out, but she took a step towards him.

“And everyone else is too tired to follow us,” he countered without quite looking at her.

“Oh,” she caught on. “Well, I know how you do love sneaking kisses in the woods, so…”

“And are you amenable to such rustic kisses?” he asked with a grin, fitting his hand perfectly in hers as they stepped beneath the trees.

“Darling,” she beamed up at him, “I am _always_ amenable to kisses wherever you choose to set them.”

“Good,” he murmured, setting one briefly to the back of her hand that made her catch her breath a moment.

They walked through the woods in a comfortable silence for a while before he spoke again. “Two Winter’s Crests ago,” he said, “I was trying to impress you with a trick shot at the shooting gallery in Westruun. Do you remember?”

“Ah,” she laughed, “so you _did_ mean to impress me! Show-off.”

“Yes, well,” he shrugged. “I’m not sure if it would have been more or less impressive if my shot hadn’t destroyed the tent, but no matter now.”

“Enough has happened in the two years since then, Percival,” she admitted, gently squeezing his hand, “that I am sufficiently impressed.”

“As am I,” he said softly, then fell silent while Vex walked along beside him, pondering what _that_ meant. Finally he continued, “Last Winter’s Crest, you’d just given me my city back.”

Vex scoffed. “What, as if I alone did such a thing?”

“Perhaps not,” he amended, “but I certainly recall your particular...concern, for my well-being, for my state of mind.”

“We were all concerned, Percival.”

“Yes, but you were the one who…” he trailed off, looking at her wide-eyed. “Vex’ahlia. I treasure your regard, do you know that?”

“I...don’t quite know what you mean.”

“You have a way of noticing...well, everything. No surprise perhaps, keen-eyed ranger that you are. But you always have noticed things about me that no one else did.”

Her eyes gleamed as she took both his hands and stepped closer. “I mean, it’s hardly a secret that you’re so clever and handsome.”

He laughed. “Maybe a secret to some, but not what I meant. Vex, you’ve always had a way of seeing straight through all my walls to my heart, as it were. Things I thought I couldn’t bear for anyone to see; kept them hidden away; but your gaze pierces right to the truth and I...I don’t even mind.”

“Well.” She shivered. Percy pulled her closer, into his arms. “Fair’s fair, Percival. You’ve seen clear through me often enough as well.”

He held her quietly for a moment, then murmured, “I like what I see.”

“So do I.”

He tensed, then pulled back, clearing his throat. “Vex, that house of yours...the title…”

She tilted her head as he stammered for words. “Yes, dear?”

“I don’t want you to think…” He drew back till she held him only by his fingertips. “My intent was never to...to force the issue. To bind you. You owe me nothing, please remember that.”

Vex frowned. “I...understand. I think. But what --”

“Say no, if you wish,” he interrupted, almost pleading, but not quite looking at her. “I would understand if you have other plans for your life, from which I...from which Whitestone is but a distraction.”

Vex frowned more intensely. “Gods, Percival, what are you --”

“You have brought color and life back to my home,” he went on in a rush. “To my heart. As much as I love this town, it was truly dreary without you here bossing everyone around even as you charm them all to adore you. The moment you stepped back through that tree I realized -- it’s because I love you more. Than Whitestone. Well, than anything, really.”

At her small gasp, he met her eyes. His grip on her hands tensed with firmed resolve, then faltered when she interrupted him with, “Darling, you have a whole speech prepared, don’t you?”

“I --” he broke off with a laugh. “Well, yes. I did try.”

“Well, go on then,” she smiled. “I always do enjoy your speeches. And this one seems to be heading in an excellent direction.”

“Heading straight out of my head, you mean,” he sighed. “Trust you to interrupt a properly pretentious moment, hm?”

“Tell me the heart of it, then,” she laughed.

“You _are_ the heart of it,” Percy smiled. “You are my heart, Vex. I know we’ve never talked much about whatever is between us, but there it is. If Whitestone does not suit you, I would follow you to the ends of the earth, if you’ll allow it. It is a long time since I have felt at home anywhere that you were not. But my dearest wish…”

“Tell me,” Vex repeated, raising a hand to his cheek. “It’s the season for granting wishes, isn’t it?”

“Stay with me,” he breathed. “Stay in Whitestone. Make your home here. I hope you will, anyway, Baroness of the Third House and all of that, but my greatest wish is to give you more than a title. Marry me, Vex’ahlia. Stay with me here, or take me where you will, but I’ve had enough of being parted from you.”

With a happy squeal she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him thoroughly.

“Right,” he said when he could breathe again. “That’s a yes? I hope?”

“You are an idiot and I love you,” she said, punctuating her words with another kiss. “That is a ‘Why didn’t we think of this ages ago?’ type of a yes.”

“Think? Yes,” he smiled sheepishly. “Ask? Not soon enough, apparently.” Disengaging from her embrace after one more kiss, he reached for his pocket and the package he’d collected during their shopping trip the day before. “Although I’m not sorry to have waited at least till _this_ was ready.”

She drew a whistling breath through her teeth as she opened the box to reveal a ring, carved with a tiny de Rolo crest, set with sapphires and one large diamond for the sun. The gold band was carved with a series of arrows in flight, and at the base of the crest’s stylized Sun Tree --

“ _What!_ ” she gasped in glee as she held the ring closer for inspection, her voice rising an octave. “Is that _Trinket_ on your crest?”

“Thought you might like that,” Percy said with his smuggest grin, hands shoved in his pockets as he admired her admiring his gift. “Makes it more of _your_ crest too, you know.”

“Hells yes it does!” She carefully slipped the ring onto her finger before flinging herself into his arms. “I’ll take it, darling,” she murmured, kissing her way up his jaw to his ear. “I’ll take you, too.”

“Done,” he said, grinning from ear to ear.

“Best Winter’s Crest present ever. And I don’t mean the ring,” she giggled, even as she drew back to gaze at it once more, then waved Trinket over, crouching to show him. “Look, Buddy! You’re on Mama’s ring! You are a true bear of the de Rolo family, that’s right, you are.”

Percy snorted with laughter as she stood and took his hand again while Trinket looked on in apparent bemusement. “Oh gods,” he mused, “is this going to make me some sort of step-father to Trinket?”

“Ew, no, that’s just weird,” Vex waved him off as they turned to head back to the castle.

“Just as well,” Percy grinned. “Could have made succession awkward.”

“But you could always adopt him if your heart’s set on it,” she challenged.

“Sorry, dearest, but of all the things my heart’s set on, adopting a bear --” Trinket lowed mournfully as if aware he was being spoken of -- “even such a fine bear as yourself, Trinket, is not actually numbered among them.”

“Well then, looks like resentful stepchild it is,” Vex _tsked_. “But he’ll get over it. Still the best Winter’s Crest ever.”

“Here I was certain nothing could top the shooting range incident.”

“Ah yes. You see, I was thinking of a rematch when the festival opens in town tomorrow.”

“You,” he drew her closer with a grin, “are so on.”

**Author's Note:**

> It was a pleasure writing for such a sweet picture! (Even though I started writing before episode 72 suddenly shifted the whole Perc'ahlia canon - in the most delightful ways of course - and sent this off in a new direction! Originally it was going to be a post-Thordak, Vex still hasn't told Percy how she feels, type of fic. This is much happier.)
> 
> Find me at [rannadylin](http://rannadylin.tumblr.com/) and the artist at [mothband](http://mothband.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!


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